LEGAL REGULATION OF CONFESSIONAL RELATIONS IN THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE IN EARLY MODERN TIMES

As a result of the split of the church, a number of new Protestant denominations appeared. The major constitutional act of the Holy Roman Empire – the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 – attempted to regulate confessional relations by excluding forceful methods of resolving a religious conflict. However, this act contained many compromises and ambiguities. As a result, at the beginning of the 17th century, a constitutional crisis arose and escalated into the Thirty Years War. The war ended with the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. Its constituent agreements confirmed the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 and made a new attempt to regulate confessional relations. The boundaries of faiths were clearly defined, and the effective mechanisms for resolving religious conflicts were created. The annus decretorius (the normal year) was determined as a principle of territorial delimitation. Imperial bodies were formed on the basis of the parity principle: there was an equal number of representatives of Catholics and Protestants. The era of confessionalization ended with the Peace of Westphalia, which had been a fundamental law of the Empire until the end of its existence.